The Operatrix explained that a messenger would drop off a scroll and the Rhiz’s special keyboard. “Sign over your well-being to us, and we’ll send help,” the Operatrix said.

Privacy has kept me lonely, Blithe thought.

“Wait,” he said as the Operatrix’s outline began to fade. He wanted to descend further without any entangling ties to normalcy. “Tell Saul it’s over.”

Even inside the Shadowlands, he knew this was a terrible task to outsource, especially when his boyfriend so prized “face-to-face contact.”

The Operatrix did not respond.

THE END

I found Aiden at the airport gate with his feet on top of compression luggage, drinking adaptogenic water. He had special celebrity security clearance. I’d checked my clunky duffel suitcase, and my feet were still sweating from my encounter with the airport scanners. I knew they saw I was missing a big dick.

I was always surveilling myself.

“Hey,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted.

Aiden looked up from his phone. “Hey, man.”

I was proud to see original Aiden Chase content without needing to look at the Gram. He wore a white woven poncho, soft brown pants, and leather sandals. His toenails glinted in the harsh lighting. His hair had been newly cut and faded; a long swath swept over the top of his head like a wave, and it got shorter and shorter down his neck. Mine was growing out from a fade because I didn’t always have the courage to go into a barbershop and bro it up with guys who called me boss.

“Okay, I think we need to process some things before we get on the plane,” I said, sitting down next to him. “I don’t want to go try to help Blithe when there’s a veil of resentment and distrust hanging over us.”

Sophie and I had role-played a whole dialogue with Aiden that could be adapted to varying levels of hostility.

“Pen, are you fucking serious?”

“Good. Thanks for starting us off. I think that your very existence brings up a lot of self-hatred for me, and the more that I can hold myself in loving imperfection, the more—”

“Aiden!”

A young dude with a nerdy bike-courier look and bad barbed-wire tattoos around his upper arms interrupted me. He stood expectantly in front of our seats.

“Hey?” Aiden said.

“My bf is over there—he’s transgendered like us—and he’d really like to meet you. Do you mind saying hi, hashtag OMG, I can’t believe I’m standing next to you!”

“Um sure, that’s cool.”

He went over to pose with the trans couple, and I was left trying to remember the techniques Sophie had reviewed with me:

—Coat yourself with love.

—Feel the contact of your feet on the ground.

—Daydream about Aiden experiencing minor life difficulties.

—Remember that Aiden’s “authentic self-perfection bullshit” is just another garment, like Wolf recycled-wool sweaters, that he puts on for attention.

Aiden came back and threw himself down on a cold airport seat. “Listen, whatever you think you know about me is wrong.”